Most people are inclined to believe that the home is the safest place to be; a place one can go to escape violence, discrimination, hate and all the injustices of the world, as well to protect our children from such injustices. But to millions of innocent children, it is sometimes a place of terror, fear, guilt, hurt and neglect. Child abuse and neglect are crimes that are difficult to rationalize, the capability and extent of damage that one human can inflict upon another, and more specifically, that a person can inflict upon their child. "Children of all ages and from a myriad of incomes, racial, religious, and ethic groups suffer from the many different forms of abuse, all harmful to their physical, emotional and psychological development and all require intervention of the Child Protective Services (CPS)" (Bender, "Child Abuse" 46). .
The types of abuse are physical abuse, physical neglect, emotional neglect, educational neglect, sexual abuse, verbal abuse, as well as mental injury, or emotional abuse. The maltreatment of children is often seen as punishment by the parent(s) as they are unable to decipher the difference between disciplinary measures and child abuse. This plays big role in the development mentally as they grow older. They lose sense of their childhood to the violence within the home, making child abuse a very serious problem in our society today. .
Physical abuse of the child is the most visible form of child maltreatment characterized as the deliberate infliction of physical injury by punching, beating, kicking, biting, burning, or otherwise harming the child. The injury is never an accident, although the parent or caretaker may have never intended to harm the child. The child may lie about the injury in fear of parental relations saying the abuse was caused by a bicycle accident or a fall down a flight of stairs. If your any kind of a reasonable person suspicion should arise if the explanation doesn't fit the injury or if there is any sort of a pattern of repeated injury.